1670 J. A. Comenius Janua Linguarum Trilinguis 77 The Pleacher prepares a green plot, of the choicer flowers, and rarer plants; and adorns th[e] garden with pleach work, that is, with pleasant walks, [etc.].

1819 J. H. Wiffen Aonian Hours (1820) 45 His nest, the pleach Of many a wilding bough in the next giant beech.

1823 E. Moor Suffolk Words 283 Pleach, is described to be a branch of whitethorn brought down and laid horizontally in a fence to thicken a weak part. It is notched (or snotched) at the point of tact with the earth which is loosened to encourage the pleach to strike root.

1941 Archit. Rev. 89 85/2 The ‘pleaches’ too are rammed down, and when several yards are ready the two men work in the headers, which are slender and straight rods, twisted over and across, in and out of the stakes.

1968 J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts xx. 244 Stakes of cleft ash or chestnut..is [sic] driven into the ground, to form a rough ‘weave’ or pleach, depending on the flexibility of the stems.

2000 Times (Nexis) 19 Feb. ‘Look at that brash. There's no pleaches in it, is there?’ We shake our heads. Not a pleach in sight. Rarely seen such substandard brash. The day passes with much plashing—cutting the main stems and bending them over horizontally to encourage new growth.

a1398 [implied in: J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 246^v The wythy..is þikker in bowes and spray by plechyng, schruddyng, and paryng [L. per complexionem..& tonsuram]. (at pleaching n.)].

tr. Palladius De re Rustica (Duke Humfrey) (1896) iii. 418 Bende as a bowe or vynes that men pleche [L. in arcus similitudinem debere curuari].

tr. Palladius De re Rustica (Duke Humfrey) (1896) iii. 330 (MED) Now husbondrie his olde vines plecheth [L. gloss. propagat].

tr. Palladius De re Rustica (Duke Humfrey) (1896) iv. 648 (MED) At October in luke lond plecheth he.

?1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. xl^v Lette the toppe of one tre lye ouer the rote of an other tre and to pleche downe the bowes of the same tre, to stoppe the holowe places.

1818 J. Keats Endymion iii. 149 Plunder'd vines,..pleach'd New growth about each shell and pendent lyre.

1893 R. L. Stevenson Catriona xxiii. 281 The trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some pleached.

1976 Daily Tel. 31 July 16/2 When they get too spreading they can be ‘pleached’, the branches trained to a framework and the surplus removed.

1995 Garden (Royal Hort. Soc.) Nov. 706/1 On one side of this narrow, brick-paved space is the bold form of Fatsia japonica ‘Variegata’ and on the other a Magnolia grandiflora is pleached against a wall, restraining its ambition to soar skywards.

?1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. xl To plasshe or pleche a hedge.

1635 Sir E. Verney in F. P. Verney et al. Mem. Verney Family Civil War (1892) I. 129 The Gardner shall pleach noe Hedge this yeare.

1825 J. T. Brockett Gloss. North Country Words Pleach, to bind a hedge.

1874 J. A. Symonds Sketches Italy & Greece (1898) I. xiii. 280 The low broad arches of the alleys pleached with vines.

1886 Cornhill Mag. July 32 The banks of the..hedgerows, which were seldom cut or pleached.

1914 A. W. Banfield Dict. Nupe Lang. (1969) I. 407 Swa, to pleach with loose grass; ezà nạnạ èswa 'gbà, this person is pleaching a fence.

1968 J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 37 In Leicestershire there grew the art of pleaching, or ‘laying-back’ the hedge so that it did not outgrow its strength.

2004 Farmers Guardian (Nexis) 19 Mar. 68 Competitors were required to stake, pleach and heather a length of hedge.

a1616 [implied in: W. Shakespeare Antony & Cleopatra (1623) iv. xv. 73 Would'st thou..see Thy Master thus with pleacht Armes, bending downe His corrigible necke? View more context for this quotation].

1830 Ld. Tennyson Poems 125 Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips.

1861 F. Metcalfe Oxonian in Iceland 96 The earth, being pleached together by the roots of dwarf willows and grass, has defied the pelting storm.

1865 A. C. Swinburne At Eleusis in Poems & Ballads 209 Poppied hair of gold Persephone Sadtressed and pleached low down about her brows.

1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions iii. i. 728 The roof was pleached of flattened oil tins.

1990 T. Griggs Quickening vii. 54 Her hands moving continuously, pleaching bay and leaf-coloured wool into a blanket that spread out in waves around her.